How a Minneapolis childcare center survived the ICE surge – and is moving forward

Dozens of volunteers, mostly over the age of 70, offer rides and serve as interpretersSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxOn a February afternoon at a Spanish-immersion childcare center in Minneapolis, dozens of toddlers grabbed puffy coats out of cubbies as parents shuffled them out the door.Down the hall, Michael, the husband of the center’s director, stared intently at a monitor streaming the building’s security footage, watching for any vehicles that might be carrying agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since January, when federal agents descended on the Twin Cities as part of Operation Metro Surge, he’s been leaving his own job early to volunteer here every afternoon.Other volunteers arrived, too. Most of them are in their 70s, affectionately nicknamed “abuelitas” by the staff, even though their grandchildren don’t attend the center. Their mission is to drive staff members, who are immigrants, home and serve as observers and interpreters should federal agents pull them over. Even though the center’s director says all staffers are authorized to be in the country, the government’s aggressive immigration operation has left them too afraid to drive to the center on their own.“I’m just doing what I can do,” said Sarah, a volunteer driver. “I’m white, I’m 71. I think I would not be treated like she might be treated.” (The people interviewed for this story agreed to talk only if the center wasn’t named and their full names were not included, for fear of attracting the attention of federal authorities.)About 60 volunteers, many of whom live in suburbs, have been working in shifts to take the center’s staff to and from their homes in neighborhoods across the city. The effort is just one example of the elaborate systems of mutual aid and support that childcare centers have set up in the Twin Cities. While the center slowly tries to find a new normal, its organizing actions offer lessons for other communities in the future.“You literally have to have a good network to survive, because it’s not as though there is a government organization coming to help,” said Lily Crooks, who has helped childcare centers connect with non-profits and volunteers. At the St Paul center, where Crooks is the director, she held a fundraiser that raised $5,000 for Lyft gift cards so that employees and parents could pay for a ride rather than stand at a bus stop where ICE agents have been known to operate.“It’s both really amazing to see the way that people are sticking up for their neighbors and supporting them, and then it also kind of feels bleak realizing that there isn’t going to be some saving entity coming,” Crooks said.But as the surge recedes from the public, some worry about what will come next and if such volunteer efforts will be sustainable in the long run.“This is not over,” said Diana, the director of the Spanish-immersion childcare center. “And maybe it’s going to take years.”In November, employees at the Minneapolis daycare center started hearing murmurs that immigration agents were detaining people even if they had legal status. “They are not respecting the due process – like, what is happening?” said Diana, whose center serves about 50 children from three months to five years old.Since English is not her employees’ first language, Diana said many worried about explaining their situations if stopped by ICE. Even Diana, who grew up in South America but is now a US citizen, started carrying her passport.Then, the day after Christmas, tensions rose further. Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old rightwing influencer, posted a video on YouTube alleging fraud in Somali-run daycares in Minneapolis. The video – which included many claims that were later shown to be false and misleading – went viral, amplified on social media by vice-president JD Vance and attorney general Pam Bondi.On 5 January, the Trump administration cited Shirley’s video as justification for adding 2,000 ICE and border patrol agents to its Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. That brought the total number to about 3,000 officers, nearly three times the number of police officers in the Twin Cities. Then, two days later, when an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good, most of Diana’s employees went into hiding. So many employees stayed home that she closed the center for six days as she tried to figure out how to move forward.Some families were spooked, too. Twelve kids withdrew from the center, forcing Diana to lay off one staff member.To persuade her remaining staff to return, she contacted people and non-profit groups, and one offered to coordinate the system of volunteer drivers to escort staff to and from their homes. The drivers said volunteering was an obvious decision, even if they also felt unsafe doing so.“Oh, it’s risky,” said Sarah, who has been driving one of the childcare employees home two or three times a week, often with her 76-year-old husband as backup. “I still need to find the strength and courage to do what I know is right.”The volunteers have been coached about what to do if they are stopped by ICE: crack the window, don’t lie, see if the agents have a warrant signed by a judge and dated. If she were stopped, Sarah said: “I would do the best I can. I would follow the protocol. I would ask all those questions – and what would happen, would happen.”Sarah takes precautions to avoid being tracked. She always turns off her smartphone’s location services when giving rides. She is also careful when talking about her volunteering, since she knows that not everyone sees things the way she does. At a recent meeting of her neighborhood book club, she said: “One of the women said: ‘The Somalis don’t belong here.’ It’s really disheartening to me that people can see things and interpret it so differently.”Sarah was a teenager during the civil rights movement, “and this feels like a similar moment for our generation to stand up and against oppression in various ways”, she said.She has also formed a bond with the childcare worker she drives home, P. P said that she was thankful for the ride and wouldn’t be able to work or eat without it. But, in an interview conducted partly in English and partly with the help of a Spanish interpreter, she said she was frustrated that this kind of help was necessary at all.“It’s not OK that someone feels unsafe in a safe country,” she said, putting the word “safe” in air quotes.Even though Trump administration officials have announced that Operation Metro Surge is winding down, crowdsourced sites like IceOut continue to record ICE actions. Local media reported that agents were getting stealthier and targeting the suburbs rather than urban areas.Even so, by early March, all but two employees said they were comfortable enough to start driving to work on their own again.P is still being driven to work, but she expects that soon she will go back to driving herself. “We have to try and just do it. We have to survive. We have to resistir,” she said.Diana explained that “in Spanish, we use that word a lot – resistencia”. The meaning carries a blend of resistance and endurance.“It means that you don’t give up, you keep fighting,” she said. “We are going to get through it. This is going to pass.”This story about ICE raids was produced by the Hechinger Report, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter